RAID1 help

RAID1 help

[Jason Gordon]

I have been trying to setup software RAID 1 on a new debian based 
system for the last day and I cant seem to get it right.  I have a 
Promise Ultra ATA 66 PCI card with 2 IDE channels on it.  I have two 
identical 27.3 GB HDs hooked to this card, each on its own channel.

I followed the instructions on 
http://docman.sourceforge.net/home_html/md-raid1.html exactly but I 
also looked at various HOW-Tos.

My layout is as follows.

/dev/hde1	~26 GB 	/
/dev/hde2	~700 MB	swap

/dev/hdg has the same layout.

When I installed, /dev/hdg* was the failed disk, so I installed onto 
/dev/hde1.

With both disks detatched, the system boots properly.  With /dev/hde 
only attached, the system boots properly and reports it is in degraded 
mode.  However, with /dev/hdg attached, the system kernel panics.  Lilo 
comes up, loads, grabs the RAM disk image (from initrd) and loads that 
into memory and starts to boot.  But then it eventually somewhere in 
the boot process it kernel panics.  Here are some of the messages:

isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=09:00, iso_blknum=16, block=32
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev2/root, or too 
many mounted file systems
...
cramfs: wrong magic
warning: can't open /etc/mtab: no such file or directory
pivot_root: No such file or directory
/sbin/init: cannot open dev/console: no such file
Kernel panic: Attempted to kill init!

The only thing I can think to do right now is to try again with a 
slightly different layout.  Some articles had mentioned something about 
a small /boot partition.
/dev/hde1	~100 MB	/boot
/dev/hde2	~26 GB		/
/dev/hde3	~700 MB	swap

Any help, ideas suggestions, im getting pretty frustrated here.

Jason

Re: RAID1 help

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 02:56:15PM -0400, Jason Gordon wrote:
> I have been trying to setup software RAID 1 on a new debian based 
> system for the last day and I cant seem to get it right.
<snip>

It sounds like you're trying to use the default Debian kernels.  This is
very difficult.  I've tried pretty seriously three times and failed.
Google doesn't find anyone who ever succeeded.  A recent inquiry to
linux-raid and debian-user mailing lists yielded zero responses.

> Any help, ideas suggestions, im getting pretty frustrated here.

Give up on the Debian kernels and build your own that includes the RAID1
drivers as modules.

(OTOH, if you do stick it out with the Debian kernels and figure
something out, please report back)

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.

Re: RAID1 help

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 05:22:35PM -0400, Jason Gordon wrote:
> Also recall I was able to
> get the system to boot using 2 out of the 3 possible combinations
> (booting with drives 1 & 2 attached works, booting with drive 1
> attached works, but booting with just drive 2 attached gives me the
> kernel panic).  This is with all of the various parameters in lilo.conf
> referring to /dev/md* devices.

Hmmm, well if your kernel is mountiing /dev/mdx as root, then you've got
the driver issue figured out.

It sounds like perhaps you're missing the raid-extra-boot line (the
howto you listed on docman.sf.net describes it)?  This should load
complete boot stuff onto any disks you specify on the configuration
line.  If you're using LBA32, ignore the notes about a /boot partition -
you shouldn't need it anymore.

Now I'm gonna have to go over these docs and figure out what they did to
get it working with stock kernels that I missed!

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.